Garry Sonny Martin

Sarah Mitchell gave birth to my father Jack Martin on Clifton Station – a sheep and cattle property halfway between Charleville and Cunnamulla. Although there was never any acknowledgment by Jack Farlow that he was the father of my father, thanks to ancestry.com it all but proves, without having a proper DNA test, that he is my grandfather.

Granny wasn’t aware that she had to register him so there are no records of his birth. It wasn’t until Dad and Mum went into the Charleville courthouse to get married that they discovered he wasn’t registered.

As it turns out Grandfather Martin, Bob Martin, allowed Dad to use his surname and subsequently that’s how we became known as Martin and not Mitchell. Dad would attend school in Bollon a small township not far from Clifton station on Kooma county.

There was a small Aboriginal reserve on the outskirts of Bollon where some Kooma families lived, including the Speedy family, and Dad would walk to school each day with them.

I believe Dad only went to third grade and never really got a good education, but later on in life he realised the importance of education and endeavoured to give his kids the opportunity to learn and attend high school (hence the move later from Cooladdi to Cambooya).

His lack of education didn’t deter him from doing his job with the Aboriginal legal service, but in doing so he nearly drove us all crazy when he’d call out, ‘How do you spell policeman or courthouse?’ And, ‘Does officer start with an o or an h?’

Sitting on the veranda at Rhyde Street in Toowoomba at his old typewriter, one-finger job hitting the buttons, and thinking he was Sherlock Holmes or Perry Mason, he thought he looked real deadly.

Dad worked on the railway as a fettler in Charleville and Cooladdi and eventually Cambooya when us kids were growing up and he would retire from the railway and move to Toowoomba where he lived for the rest of his life.

While Dad enjoyed sports, a sportsperson he wasn’t… I recall a night in Cooladdi when all the men were sitting around boasting their sporting abilities when someone suggested they have a foot race. About seven or eight of them, including Dad, lined up to face the starter and the scene was set. The footpath adjacent to the railway line was their chosen track, it was a fast track with a brown clay under surface and burnt charcoal, from the train engines, on top.

Cecil Fisher, who was up from Coothella (a nearby railway siding), was the official starter. Handkerchief in hand he stepped up to the line… ‘Take your marks!’ he announced. The runners quickly moved and jostled into position at the starting line on Cecil’s command and now they were all set and ready to prove to the anxiously awaiting crowd who was the fastest.

‘Ready…! Set…! Go!’ And they were off, flat out towards the finish line. The race was run over about one hundred meters and it was a very tight track so there was a lot of bumping going on with arms and skinny black legs going everywhere.

As they were nearing the end of the race, with Mr Anderson clearly out in front, Dad tripped and fell flat on his face. Us kids all raced over to pick him up and see if he was okay and that’s when we noticed all the skin off him – he wasn’t a pretty sight.

It wasn’t until the next morning that the fall had shown its full effect as poor old Dad could hardly move, he was a pitiful sight, face all swollen and hobbling around.

We learned that the charcoal was the real cause of his injury, as the sulphate in the coal must have some chemical properties that causes the skin to become infected.

I enjoyed going fishing with Dad at Cooladdi. Every so often, he and a friend would take us out to the Paroo River and sometimes we’d camp overnight. It was easy to catch a feed of fish back then before people started using gill nets. It was in the middle of winter when he took us three boys fishing – Ray ,Poey, myself and Mr Kingdom.

We had plenty of bait, worms we had dug from the garden at home, and yabbies that we dragged out from the smaller channels of the Quilbery creek. Mr Kingdom, Ray and I were the main fishermen, while Dad and Poey kept us warm by stoking the fire and offering us hot billy tea and Mum’s deliciously baked biscuits.

I think from memory we managed to catch around one hundred fish that night and much to the delight of most of the fettler families enjoyed a feast of yellow belly and catfish.

Mum’s tearoom customers also loved the fish and chips that was on offer. The Flying Flee would stop over in Cooladdi for a refreshments break on its way to and from Quilpie and Mum, who operated the tearoom, would make a much better profit than she normally would by selling the fish.

Once Dad took us boys roo shooting on a Saturday morning and his rifle had a hair trigger and would go off with the slightest of movement. Dad and I were in the front seat and Ray and Poe were in the back and as we went down into a creek crossing someone spotted a roo.

Dad quickly stopped the car and reached for the rifle that was placed in between him and me and as he picked it up, ‘Bang!’ It went off with the bullet hitting the window frame just in front of my head. I think we all got that big of a fright from the incident that we forgot about the kangaroo and went back home.

He was not very good at communicating and I can never remember ever having a father–son chat. It always felt like he was telling me and not wanting to converse or engage in a meaningful way. It wasn’t until I went to work in Charleville at Yudama Hostel that we would actually sit down and have a one-on-one conversation and tragically it would be our last as he was taken from us on his return home to Toowoomba.

As a result of never having the ability to communicate effectively with his children I made a vow that I would try and do everything I could to have better communication with my own kids.

He may be gone but he’ll never be forgotten as the Aboriginal community of Toowoomba named the Jack Martin Sports Complex at Drayton in his honour for the years of hard work and dedication he gave to the community.